Wednesday, 19 November 2014

THE HUNT BE DAMNED

[ONE FROM THE ARCHIVES TODAY. will try to post this week!]

I love this story. Or more to
the point, I love the subtext of this story even more, or the subtext my
writer’s brain lends to it. A French hunter recently had to have his hand
amputated because his dog shot it off. Yes, you read that right. The trusty best
friend, the pooch he has deemed ‘adorable,’ was apparently going in for a ‘cuddle’
right as the man was in mid hunt causing him to pull the trigger and blow his
own hand off. OH, the irony is so thick on this one.

The huntsman in question has three Blue Gascony Basset Hounds, and was out hunting with three
of them when the youngest – clearly the most tactile of the three – stayed
behind while the other two ran ahead chasing a deer. This is when this infamous
cuddle took place. Despite the serious injury, the man insists the dog is
adorable and it was the man's own fault for not having the gun on safety – while hunting
with the clear intent to kill animals. Yes, that makes sense.

Okay, so here is what I took
from the story…this adorable dog was most likely not going in for a cuddle.
This dog was most likely sick to death of freezing his balls off in the forest
while he was made to watch his owner kill defenseless animals and decided to
take action once and for all. The other two hounds acted as a diversion and
took off to ‘chase deer.’ When in fact, I’m sure they were warning the deer
that some serious sh*t was about to go down and they better run for cover.
Then, the ‘adorable’ ring leader (it’s always the young cute ones in the bunch
you have to be suspicious of) decided to take action and strategically ‘cuddle’
his master just as he was about to get a shot off. God I love Basset Hounds. I
had one long ago and she used to insist on sleeping with me, bathing with me (I
really had no choice, she’d just dive in the bathtub), sitting on my lap when I
drove. She and I were constantly working on our boundary issues.

One also has to appreciate
the irony (unless you’re an avid hunter and then, well, that’s another lengthy discussion)
when a hunter gets any sort of limb or appendage blown off when he is intending
to do just that to Bambi (all deer to me are Bambi. It’s just the way it is). Not
to mention, he’s dragging other animals with him and making them complicit in
his death march. This is also what I love about dogs, no matter where you are,
or what you’re doing, they’re going to get all up in your face and show you
some love. "Hunt? What hunt, I need attention and you’re going to give me some
god damn it. Oh, and sorry about the hand."